It was late in the afternoon when we returned from a trip to Versailles to the metro station closest to our hotel which was the Saint-Michel Notre-Dame. I was in Paris for a long weekend with my bestie, J, and we were exhausted by the time we got back to Paris. Versailles was grand on an unimaginable scale and had involved a lot of walking. As we came out into sunny Paris from the underground station, I felt rested by the hour or so spent in the train and decided to just find a café to spend until dinner-time while J decided to head back to our room and take a nap.
I started walking along the left-bank of the Seine and spotted a bookstore with an old-school store-front that had a yellow bit running above the green display-windows and doors with metal letters spelling out ‘SHAKESPEARE AND COMPANY’. It rang a bell but I couldn’t quit place where I had heard of this bookstore before. There was a small queue in front of the door and I joined it. To add to the excitement was the gorgeous view of the Notre Dame through the cherry blossoms. With the afternoon sun lighting up the façade of the church, it was almost like the church was glowing from within.
There was a cart of second-hand books just outside the entrance and I was browsing it while waiting for my turn to get in, in the last leg of the queue. Once inside, the bookstore was a dream come true! Dark, tall shelves bursting with books and running from wall to wall and floor to ceiling. Narrow rooms leading to more book-filled rooms. There were comfy chairs placed here and there, and a few stools too. Old books and new in every genre you can think of. And all in English! They also have rare and antiquarian books but of course they weren’t on display. The bookstore had an eerie similarity to the catacombs I had visited the previous evening with neatly stacked skulls and bones replaced by book-spines. It was also definitely less absurd than the catacombs to spend a leisurely evening in.
I must have spent an hour or so at the bookstore before I headed upstairs to the reading and writing rooms. More books and seating, all old and mangled. Secret nooks with writing tables, communal seating, chairs for the loners, long benches if you want to lie down while reading and a piano. The atmosphere of the reading room is perfect for any kind of book-lover. I settled down on an armchair and started reading the book I had just picked up downstairs. The resident cat was resting on the day bed and even had a sign asking not to be disturbed. There were a few more people sitting and reading while several people came by and took photos and left. Someone else then started playing the piano and as the music meandered through the narrow rooms to where I was sitting, I thought that this is what my version of heaven would be. I spent another hour or so there before heading out with more books than I intended to buy.
What I loved the most about the bookstore was how welcome it was to everyone irrespective of whether or not they purchased something. It was one of those rare spaces where you could just be without there being an expectation of spending money. This is also my favourite thing about Blossoms Bookstore where I’ve spent hours during my university days just looking, smelling and feeling the pages of old books.
I found out later, while reading about the history of the bookstore, that the founder, George Whitman was deeply inspired by the generosity he experience while travelling across Central America. He made the motto of the bookstore: “Be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise.” and got it painted at the entrance to the reading room. It reminded me of a bedtime story my mother told me often, a devotee begging for his god to be his guest. The god comes to him in different forms – as a beggar, as a peddler, as a neighbour, etc. The devotee serves them all and finally god appears to him as himself and the devotee complains that he took too long to grant his wish. The god then tells him that he has been visiting him everyday albeit in different forms and that the devotee has tended to his needs all those times. The god then leaves him with the concept ‘Atithidevo Bhava’ (अतिथिदेवो भव:) meaning guests are equivalent to god.
Ever since he started the bookstore in 1951, aspiring writers were allowed to sleep in beds nestled among bookshelves in exchange for some help with the store, agreeing to read a book a day, and writing a one-page autobiography for the shop’s archives. Even today, the doors of the bookstore are open to the so-called ‘tumbleweeds’.
Despite being a book-lover, Shakespeare and Company was not at the top of my Paris bucket-list but fate had a way of correcting it. I spent a relaxing few hours there and came back touched by the warmth of the place. It will now forever feature on any future Paris bucket-list. Sorry Blossoms, but I now have a new favourite bookstore.
A'via'l 